The great Easter chick hunt!

I can’t believe we go to Northumberland tomorrow! Both of us are really, really excited!

I left Jeff’s house about an hour ago, hunting for the lost Easter chicks. Wondering what I am talking about? Well… read on!

Firstly though – in other news, I passed my ITIL Foundation exam. I got the results about lunch time and considering this was the 2^nd time I undertook it, I am very glad I managed to pass, especially considering I was still slightly suffering from jet lag after coming back from Las Vegas.

I left work early as I was totally knackered (my boss wasn’t in the office) and arrived at Jeff’s house at about 4:00pm. Jeff is currently making my Easter egg and therefore wouldn’t allow me in the kitchen – I still have no idea what he has done or what he has made.. he said I will have to wait until it is finished and anyone who knows me will attest to the fact that I am incredibly impatient and also very nosey! However, in this instance I wasn’t bothered as it meant I had time to hide the 17 Easter Chicks that I had bought from a supermarket earlier on in the week around Jeff’s house. I had also printed out a nice note saying ‘It’s now time for Jeff’s Easter Chick hunt – 18 little chicks have lost their way and need you to find them, the more chicks you find, the better your reward will be’… I gave this note to Jeff as I left the house so right at this moment he is hunting around his house, trying to find all the chicks!

Once Jeff had finished in the kitchen, we watered all the plants outside (they are growing so rapidly!) and then started on the French apple tart. After the last attempt, we made sure we didn’t turn the oven up as high as before and as we thought – the result was far, far better – no burnt bits at all! We had already decided to make this for Jeff’s parents and sister so it’s currently in a box, at Jeff’s house, ready to take to Northumberland tomorrow.

We also decided that we were going to make lemon drizzle cake – this was using the same recipe as we had used a few weeks ago, from the BBC good food website. Jeff suggested that once we had baked the cake, we go to ‘Hobbycraft’ to try and find some really nice cake decorations. I didn’t think there would be anything suitable, however Jeff proved me wrong by going on their website and low and behold – lots and lots of flowers and other things that we could put on the cake! As they were open until 8:00pm we headed over there quickly and managed to buy some really nice edible flowers.

Once we were back, Jeff and I made dinner – we decided to do something quite quick and easy, so we decided on steak with a couple of vegetables. However, these were no ordinary vegetables, oh no! These were vegetables that had been cooked Ina Garten style – e.g. we followed another 2 recipes out of her book ‘Back to basics’ which is slowly becoming my bible! We did ‘parmesan roasted broccoli with pine nuts’ and sweet potato wedges with brown sugar, salt and pepper – both turned out incredibly well, the flavours were just brilliant. Jeff rather enjoyed it too.

After dinner we turned our attention back to the cake, iced it, cut it up and began to stick the flowers on it – we managed to pop most of the pieces into a big tub and the ones we didn’t manage to get in, well… let’s just say they ended up in a good home (e.g. our stomachs!). I left Jeff quite early as I am utterly shattered. Unfortunately my work is incredibly busy and my sleep has been severely disrupted. Jeff is supportive as ever, however I am hoping I get a good nights sleep tonight as we have quite a long drive tomorrow! And on that note… I will say goodnight! Next time I blog, I shall update you on what Jeff actually got me for Easter, as well as tell you all the things we got up to in Northumberland :-)

- Molly